elocin
Junior Guinea Pig
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2014
- Messages
- 7
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 140
Background: six year old guinea pig (seven in November), fed on burgess excel guinea pig nuggets and burgess excel timothy hay, as well as a cup of leafy greens each day, with the occasional treat or fruit. She doesn't have a companion as her sister died last year, and I've been unable to find another elderly sow to live with her.
Brought my guinea pig into the vets last Friday as she hadn't been eating much and was producing very soft stools. On Friday they gave her antibiotics and painkillers, as well as a prescription of Oxbow Critical Care. When I took her back in on the Saturday her poops were still pretty much the same and a different vet had found a heart murmur. She was given an antibiotic injection and was to be kept on the painkillers alongside syringe feeding.
She had her check up today and the vet examined her once more. Stools are still soft, but slightly more firm than they were before but not much has changed. She's eating a little more, but nowhere near the amount she did before she was sick. I've also noticed a little bit of weight loss despite the syringe feeding which she gets 4x a day. She will only handle 5ml of this at a time however. She barely touches her nuggets or timothy hay, both of which she loved before and would eat in their entirety.
I'm in training to eventually become a vet so I'm administering her feeds correctly as well as her medications, but in all of my lifetime of owning guinea pigs I have never, ever had one become ill - all of them have died of old age. So this is a new experience for me. The vet has placed her on heart medication, a drug called Fortekor. She is to have half of a tablet crushed in water or ribena daily for the next ten days before her next check up to see if this helps. I am to continue syringe feeding her and keeping her off of veg/fruit in the meanwhile. I am having to supplement vitamin C as she normally maintains adequate levels of vitamin C through her diet.
If this is heart disease/failure, what should I expect? Is the soft stools/lethargy/lack of appetite typical of this condition? And how long do elderly guinea pigs with this problem normally survive?
Thanks in advance.
Brought my guinea pig into the vets last Friday as she hadn't been eating much and was producing very soft stools. On Friday they gave her antibiotics and painkillers, as well as a prescription of Oxbow Critical Care. When I took her back in on the Saturday her poops were still pretty much the same and a different vet had found a heart murmur. She was given an antibiotic injection and was to be kept on the painkillers alongside syringe feeding.
She had her check up today and the vet examined her once more. Stools are still soft, but slightly more firm than they were before but not much has changed. She's eating a little more, but nowhere near the amount she did before she was sick. I've also noticed a little bit of weight loss despite the syringe feeding which she gets 4x a day. She will only handle 5ml of this at a time however. She barely touches her nuggets or timothy hay, both of which she loved before and would eat in their entirety.
I'm in training to eventually become a vet so I'm administering her feeds correctly as well as her medications, but in all of my lifetime of owning guinea pigs I have never, ever had one become ill - all of them have died of old age. So this is a new experience for me. The vet has placed her on heart medication, a drug called Fortekor. She is to have half of a tablet crushed in water or ribena daily for the next ten days before her next check up to see if this helps. I am to continue syringe feeding her and keeping her off of veg/fruit in the meanwhile. I am having to supplement vitamin C as she normally maintains adequate levels of vitamin C through her diet.
If this is heart disease/failure, what should I expect? Is the soft stools/lethargy/lack of appetite typical of this condition? And how long do elderly guinea pigs with this problem normally survive?
Thanks in advance.
She still eats some hay and nuggets, just not as much as she used to. I've been increasing her feed and just managed to get her to eat 8ml there over the course of an hour, but it gets to a point where she just refuses to take any more no matter what restraint I use. She isn't entirely off food. On Friday she was, but since then she has started eating more, I'm watching her munch on some hay right now. Starting tomorrow I will be able to spend more time giving her supplement feeds as I've been at college almost every day finishing up on my course.